Billy Beane on the A’s ability to identify and acquire Donaldson, Chavez, Moss, et al, that incredible run-differential, and the stadium future

I wasn’t the only one who realized I hadn’t talked to A’s GM Billy Beane at length in close to a year–that’s the first thing Beane pointed out to me when we talked over the phone last night.

All my fault. I totally get wrapped up in the 49ers, Raiders and Warriors… and yes, the Giants… that I get pulled away from the A’s far too often, especially the bigger-picture how-the-hell-do-the-A’s-keep-doing-this conversation.

But the A’s and Beane (and his front office group) are too fascinating to bypass for too long–if you’re paying attention, this is one of the great stories in sports, continuously and continuously adaptable, which is always the best part to watch.

How the A’s adapt and adjust on the fly, and how the wins continue to pile up.

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This time, I was watching the A’s beat Tampa Bay and it struck me: Practically the whole team has been assembled via discount trade or waiver-wire acquisition, NOT by draft-and-develop methods…

And yet right now the A’s have the best record in baseball and are blowing away the field in run-differential (they’re at +99 and the No. 2 team is Detroit at +49.

They don’t and can’t have monster mid-career superstars on this team; they have collected 20+ very good players, most of them at modest salaries, most of them acquired in creative or subtle transactions (when every other team in the league could’ve done the same).

“We’re just a jigsaw puzzle of strengths,” Beane said.

Of course I figure the A’s have a system for tracking players in other organizations and of course I know Beane can’t discuss it in detail–it’s the ultimate proprietary information, and I respect the A’s for coming up with a system that works.

I was just interested in talking to Beane about the mindset that produces a team that can act like this and flourish when so many teams that do things normally and spend much more fail utterly and constantly.

It reminds me of the way Jim Harbaugh blew through and flipped the perceived limitations at Stanford when he arrived:

-Take the noted disadvantage (Stanford’s sky-high academic standards/the A’s inability to pay proven players when they hit free agency or high arbitration) and turn it into your biggest advantage;

-Harbaugh made a Stanford education the ultimate reward for academic-minded players and parents, and he produced tough-minded, successful teams to make the choice even more rewarding;

-The A’s have the freedom to trade anybody at any time because that’s what they do; there’s no reward in it for them to hold on to the status quo, so the entire process of the “churn” motivates them to constantly seek new deals and identify exactly what other teams have bypassed because they’re holding onto their established players.

—-BILLY BEANE interview transcript/

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-Q: Can’t help but notice that most of your team–with the best record baseball and an ungodly run-differential–is made up of players you acquired as young but wholly unproven players or even as journeymen and they are now winning players. How did you collect all these guys?

-BEANE: Oh, you noticed? What I can say is that we have a very disciplined approach to things. We have to be disciplined because of who we are.

So we’re disciplined in everything we do–doesn’t mean we’re always right and in fact we’re not. We’ve made mistakes, because that’s going to happen.

But we’re disciplined and we have a way to approach every decision we’re going to make.

We have a certain rational and objective approach to these decisions, and to acquiring players, and I would say that’s versus a intuitive approach.

I don’t think there’s any secret about how we approach it. If I put on my GM hat, I’m can say I’m definitely not clairvoyant on this stuff. This isn’t some special magical power.

If anything, we have discussions about the best ways to make our team the best it can be within the limits we obviously have. And we stick to that.

-Q: So what’s the approach, generally? Do you have a list of 10 to 15 guys every year that you’re targeting in the minors or bouncing around from team to team? Or is it more fluid than that?

-BEANE: It’s more fluid than that. I’ll say that there’s more flexibility in acquiring players in baseball than there is in other sports–there’s the waiver wire and the minor-league option process–things that are really not part of the NBA or NFL systems.

So yeah, it is fluid and it’s a long season. You have on-going data you receive and we know it’s our responsibility to track every player in professional baseball in some way.
-Q: Is there a guy on this team now that you acquired that you especially can circle as someone you targeted for acquisition where others might not have been looking at him at all?
-BEANE: Not really individually. We’re just a jigsaw puzzle of strengths. We’re not going to be the team of proven All-Stars.

Well, when we first started, we had the MVPs and Cy Youngs–the Giambi, Tejada, Zito, that level of players. But that situation sort of went away pretty quickly, because we couldn’t stay like that. We can’t afford to do that.

And especially now, we’re a bunch of players that each fit well together, as a whole. They all have strength and weaknesses, they’re not a bunch of stars, and put together in the right way, they can succeed.

There haven’t been many people who have noticed it, but we have a bunch of guys who have been in other organizations–a guy like Brandon Moss who bounced around before we got him, but who has a clear strength–he can really hit right-handed pitching.

Or a guy like Norris, who can really hit left-handed pitching. Or Jaso, who can really hit right-handed pitching.

They’re imperfect players but they have specific tools we can identify and by using them creatively… they really can be effective players.

-Q: Is this something you’ve really focused on lately, maybe in the last five or seven years more than you did 10 or 12 years ago? Is this something that happened in a progression, from “Moneyball” 10 or 12 years ago to now, as the A’s turned from one kind of team into another and all the waves of rebuilding piled up?

-BEANE: I think it’s been a process–it’s a practical necessity for us now. We always have to adapt to what’s available to us; that’s how we’ve always survived.
Building a baseball team is always in some ways about cost–what can you afford to do and then how do you do it?
And baseball is always a financial game as much as it is an athletic contest.
You’ve got to find a creative way to acquire players that fit what you’re doing, and you have to do it with the resources you have available.

-Q: So a guy like Jesse Chavez. You identified him and believed he would do what he’s doing now, as he was bouncing around from team to team?

-BEANE: Listen, I’m not going to be arrogant and say, ‘I predicted this years ago.’ I didn’t. None of us did, not this.

But he has a skill-set and things we saw that made us believe he could be an effective major league pitcher and definitely worth taking a chance on. And I emphasize: A chance.

We are in a spot where we can be aggressive in acquiring a number of players–take a chance on them–and they’re all not necessarily expensive chances.
Did I think Jesse Chavez would do XX or XX times 3 if we acquired him? No. But he had a skill-set that we thought was worth taking a chance on. So we did.
We’ve done that with others players as well.

-Q: So the reality is you’re doing this because of your financial situation and that means you have to keep doing this, over and over, right?
-BEANE: We do. We make no apologies for who we are and for the situation we have in terms of revenue and what we have to work with.

Unless things drastically change on the revenue front, this is the way we have to do things, and it does allow us to be more aggressive because there’s just no other way this works. We have to be able to switch courses quickly, and we do that.
We have to take advantage of who we are, which means we have to take chances and do things that maybe don’t fit the orthodoxy.

-Q: What do you make of your incredible run-differential? Just massive.

-BEANE: I’m realistic. If I speak as a GM, I can say it’s still a small sample size, right?
-Q: I think it’s contractually mandated.

-BEANE: But it’s a concrete metric to describe where you are as a club. And our run-differential right now is really good–and it probably will normalize some over time…

But certainly we’re pleased with the performance so far. And it’s indicative of the understanding that this is a very good club.

-Q: What have you heard about any lead towards a new ballpark? You’ve talked about building this team towards 2018 or ’19 or whenever, but can you
even do that now? Or do you just forget that and just do what you do with no fixed idea about when you might be in a new park?

-BEANE: The latter. What you said at the end there, that’s it.

I’m realistic–this is my 17th year doing this and my 25th year with this organization. And what you have to focus on is the present. The best moment is the one that’s here, the here and now.

I’ll put it this way: I don’t wake up every day thinking, ‘Oh, this is the day we get a new venue!’

I wake up every day thinking about how we win the next game and how we get better every day.

-Q: So maybe the new park is never coming.
-BEANE: At some point, it will come. I’m just not operating as if we know when it will be.

The best part of baseball is when you deal with the present. I think there is something to be said about the present in sports–there is an intrinsic value to a win on this day, and you lose something if you overlook that.

I’ve never set out a five- or a seven-year plan. I want to be successful every day, that’s sort of in my DNA.

If we can get a new venue and we have a larger revenue stream, that’d be terrific. But I’m not going to bed every night thinking about it.

This is probably the most excited I’ve been about an A’s team since 01-02… really hoping the injury bug stays away, Beane adds an arm or two in July, and the A’s finally make it back to the WS.

That Man

Thanks for doing this story TK. Great look into the master’s den. Love this quote: “we know it’s our responsibility to track every player in professional baseball in some way.” Every player!
This team is crushing right now. The best team in baseball, and could get better. They have been so fun to watch. 1 hit last night and they still win 3-2? Nuts.
Glad Doolittle nailed down the closer’s job. Johnson was a huge mistake, but the A’s just keep on trucking.
Another incredible story and season for the A’s. And barely anyone notices.

clunky

He’s turned the A’s minimal fan base into an advantage. They aren’t worried about alienating fans by trading guys and churning the roster because people who are bothered by that dropped out long ago.

DuRocher

I like Billy Beane’s philosophy on life — living in the present and taking care of what you can control.

Mark M

It’s completely criminal that this team remains under the radar, even in the Bay Area. I guess it’s a result of having no real stars, plus the well chronicled backed up toilet of a stadium. But that only makes it more intriguing to watch them take so many walks, be so disciplined at the plate and play great defense game in and game out. They are a throwback. A true team. They amaze me those Amazing A’s.

With that said, I still say they have no shot in the post season where the stars always take center stage. But they are built to win a lot of regular season games.

Beavis_from_Boston

BB has done one hec of a job with the little money his miserly owners give him. Hopefully he’ll get that new venue in Oakland soon, NOT in the bland burb of San Jose, which BTW is Giants country.

Raiderfusion

Tough loss last night, I really thought Otero would get out of the inning. When he gave up that that tied the score I was hoping they’d let him try and get out of the inning, but when they made the pitching change I knew we were doomed. I like Gregerson about as much as I like Johnson. If they could get rid of both he and Johnson we’d have a much better bullpen. Back to the article BB is brilliant with all the moves he makes, most work out. Detroit will still be waiting for us at the end of the year, 3rd times the charm. Go A’s in 2014, this is the year to win it all.